We needed that. I needed that. After two poor results this was a big game for us. I don’t want to over-state it by saying it was going to be pivotal to our season, as there’s an awful lot of footy still to be played, but it was probably bigger than most people realised. It’s rare that we have two bad results in a row, but three would definitely suggest a chink in the armour.
More than that though, for me personally anyway, this is Arsenal. You have to beat Arsenal. You can’t not beat them as it’s just completely unacceptable. It’s the cardinal sin in my eyes. If you say “Hey Siri, show me a team that looks like it’s been created just so Liverpool can batter them” you’ll get Arteta’s Arsenal. I still haven’t got over us losing to them in our title winning season. I was so offended by that it took some of the shine off number 19. Ok, not really. Well, yeah a little bit. That was the night when we blew the chance to reach one hundred point mark.
If we’d taken care of business that night we’d have ended the season on 101 points. I know most people don’t care about that, and in the grand scheme of things neither do I, but it did really fucking irk me that Arsenal beat us and were then smelling themselves like they’d done something special when really we handed them the points by being wasteful at one end and sloppy as fuck at the other. They didn’t even play well. They were fucking shite.
So yeah, I didn’t take that one well at all. Losing to a Watford or West Ham I can handle. In fact, losing to most teams I can handle as it can happen. Losing to Arsenal though should never happen. I’m not saying Arsenal are as bad as Norwich as clearly they aren’t. They’re probably a top seven or eight team, maybe even a little higher than that. But the way they play means they should never even get within two or three goals of us, let alone take any points. So I loved this simply because it went EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to.
When we play this incarnation of Arsenal, this is what should happen. Every time. Why? Just fucking look at how they play. The sheer arrogance, stubbornness and delusion of that tit manager of theirs is mind boggling. We’ve seen this movie before. He does this shit every time they come to Anfield and each time I’m sat there wondering just what he’s playing at.
It takes a planet sized ego to go up against a team as great as ours and insist on playing like that even when it’s continually getting punished. I remember being completely staggered by it the last time it happened but the arrogance to come here again and do the exact same thing, and then blame the players afterwards for it not working… just what a fucking knobhead.
Don’t get me wrong, we were really good in the second half and it was great to see. What I’m saying is that this is what should happen when a team comes to Anfield and does this. I used the analogy on the podcast that Arsenal were basically throwing chum over the side of the boat, waiting for the sharks to work themselves into a frenzy and then just throwing themselves in the water. Thats what the second half felt like. It was football suicide from them but unlike Arteta I don’t blame their players. They’re just playing to his orders.
It’s actually annoying it took us as long as it did to make them pay. In fact, for half an hour we made them look relatively competent because we just didn’t have any intensity in our play. I don’t know if it was the international break or if it was tactical, but we just seemed lethargic and slow in possession. We weren’t moving the ball quickly enough and there was too much passing around at the back.
We were pressing them quite well and won it back in the final third a few times, and I thought we looked like we might do something from a set-piece, but in possession it wasn’t sharp enough. Arsenal were comfortable even if they offered virtually no threat of their own. The only moments of relative danger came whenever we gave it away cheaply and they were able to have a bit of a run at us. It only happened a couple of times and they didn’t really go close to scoring. I can recall one dangerous ball in that Ox got back and dealt with well, and very little else.
But we weren’t creating much either. They insisted on trying to play out from the back every single time they had a goal kick and that looked like our most likely source of a goal. In fact, I’d have been tempted to instruct our lads to stop passing it around on halfway and just twat it out for goal kicks all the time and try to catch them out that way, because the stubborn fucks insisted on doing the same thing every time. They didn’t mix it up at all, it was just passing it around in their box, they’d work it to one of their midfielders and we’d either win the ball back there, or they’d knock it forward under pressure and it would be picked up by our lads.
Have Arsenal ever scored a goal by playing it out from the keeper like that? It isn’t a successful tactic and I don’t know why Arteta persists with it other than to satisfy his own vanity.
But for half an hour we weren’t making them pay. And then came the game changing moment. Sadio made an innocuous aerial challenge on their right back and he may or may not have made incidental contact. There was fuck all in it though. The kind of challenge you see a dozen times every game. But Arteta went ballistic, yelling at the ref and waving his arms about. A few of his players did too, and it’s just blatantly obvious this was a ploy they came up with before kick off. They’d tried it earlier on too, but when this one happened right in front of the bench they took the opportunity to go nuts.
And so did Klopp. When he saw what was happening he went charging at Arteta yelling “What do you want?? What do you want for that??” The surprising thing was that Arteta then lost it even more and went for Klopp. He had to be dragged away for his own safety. Klopp would have knocked that spray painted wig right off his stupid little Thunderbirds looking face.
What it did though was wake the crowd up. The atmosphere had fizzled out after a lively start and both crowd and players were a bit flat. Until that happened and everyone was suddenly riled up. Within seconds of the restart we’d put together our best move of the game. It was everything we hadn’t been doing previously. We moved the ball quickly and purposefully up the field, Kostas reached the byline and cut it back to Salah who’s shot was blocked by Ramsdale. He’d earlier made a close range stop to deny Mané and also turned over a shot by Trent after a good run.
He was Arsenal’s best player but he should have done much better with at least two of the goals, including the opener which arrived not long after the spat between the managers. Matip strode forward on a trademark mazy one but was tripped by Aubamayeng. That might be the only time I even saw the Arsenal skipper all game actually. What a fucking waste of space that cunt it. He’s the living embodiment of modern day Arsenal him. Utterly pointless cunt who will score a bagful in the Europa League and against some of the dregs of the league, but never do anything in any game of any importance. And he’s the captain too. Never change Arsenal.
Anyway, from the free-kick Trent whipped the ball in and Sadio powered a good header across goal. Ramsdale should have saved it but didn’t, and the deadlock was broken. I know you can’t ever be sure, but as soon as we got the first I never had any doubt we wouldn’t go on and smack them about after that. It’s Arsenal, it’s what they do.
The second half was just complete domination. They couldn’t get out of their own half because they insisted on trying to make 15 passes before even thinking about playing it forward, and very few teams are capable of doing that. In fact, the only teams I can remember who had any joy playing out from the back are City and Brighton, and City don’t really try to do it much anymore because they’ve been caught out too many times.
It’s like if you’re playing tennis against someone with an amazing backhand, you don’t hit it on that side unless you have to. We’re fucking incredible at the high press but Arteta just kept playing into the trap and then pinned the blame on his players for handing us goals. I mean, it’s partly true but he’s the one telling them to play like that, the bad snide twat. I’d be proper pissed off if I was one of his players hearing that.
The second goal was a gift to be fair. But then Arteta is the one who picked that lad who I’d never even heard of until this week. He had Tierney available but instead chose to put some inexperienced nobody up against the best player in the world. Then that inexperienced nobody pass the ball straight to Jota and it’s 2-0.
How boss was that though? So calm, so composed. What was also good about it is that he seemed to anticipate what was going to happen and he positioned himself where the ball went. He wasn’t just stood there and got lucky. He moved into that area before the lad passed it there. And then he threw two dummies to beat White and Ramsdale and tapped into the empty net. Brilliant.
In that spell we looked like scoring every time Arsenal had the ball. Because you knew we were going to rob it from them in their half and create something. Ox was within a whisker of a morale boosting goal but he shot just wide having done everything right. I’d have loved that one to go in for him. Jota looked like he was going to add a second but a heavy touch allowed Ramsdale to come out and smother. They collided and it looked pretty bad for both of them.
Ramsdale continued, Jota did too briefly but was taken off not long after. I saw a video on youtube earlier in the week of Ramsdale playing golf with that Tubes fella from Soccer AM. I only watched a bit of it before I got bored, but I thought Ramsdale came across well and seemed like a decent lad. Then I watched him come out for the second half and run towards the Kop, who at that point were still booing Arsenal onto the field. They weren’t booing him and he was always going to get a good ovation. But he started applauding while many were still booing, and he continued applauding all the way to his goal. Not gonna lie, I loved that. Made me think “yeah, he’s a good lad him”.
While I don’t think he covered himself in glory on the first two goals, he did make a lot of saves and he’s the reason it wasn’t six or seven, because it quite easily could have been. Jota was denied by a terrific Ramsdale save before Mo made it 3-0. That third goal was Sadio in microcosm really. Great run in behind to get on the end of Jota’s clever header, a heavy touch that looked like it had ruined the chance, and then a brilliant cross to give Mo a tap in.
It’s actually quite brilliant when you watch the replay from the angle behind the goal as Sadio immediately knows he has over ran the ball and the chance of a shot had gone but straight away he’s looking across to see where Mo is. He has another look as he gets near the ball and then puts it on a plate for him. Class.
Ox was replaced by Hendo and Taki replaced Jota. Within seconds the skipper was playing a perfect ball over the top for Sadio to run onto again. This time he waited, played it to Mo who in turn rolled it into the path of the overlapping Trent. His cross was perfectly weighted for Taki to arrive at the back post for an easy finish. Everyone was clearly made up for him to score and it was a nice moment for him.
He arrived just before Covid hit, ended up stranded here in lockdown when he didn’t even speak the language. Then he’s playing in empty stadiums, trying to find his feet in a new league and trying to break into the best starting eleven in world football. He ends up on loan at Southampton, still playing in empty stadiums, then he comes back here and is hardly playing again. It must be really tough, but he always seems to have a smile on his face and he’s a boss little footballer. I like him a lot and hopefully we can get him a bit more playing time over the coming weeks to see if he can build on what has been an encouraging season so far in limited opportunities.
Klopp was able to give Tyler Morton a Premier League debut late on and he slotted in seamlessly in place of Thiago. I think this lad is probably much better than any of us realise you know. He’s definitely got something about him and Klopp seems to have a lot of belief in him. It’s a shame the five subs rule wasn’t voted in or we may have seen Bradley and Beck get a chance too.
All in all this was a perfect day assuming Jota’s injury is just a knock and nothing more serious. I’m happy with four goals even if it could have been more. 4-0 is about standard really when we place these fannies. It’s level par, so I’m pleased, especially as all four forwards got a goal. The clean sheet is good too, but it wasn’t a particularly taxing day for the defence.
Alisson had little to do. There was a decent save to keep out a drive by Partey. It was one of those saves that most keepers love because they can arch their back, throw their legs up in the air, tip the ball over the bar and smile for the cameras as they fall back down to earth. Alisson just shuffled across, tipped it over the bar and didn’t even leave his feet. Imagine Pickford there, or that Darlow knob at Newcastle.
He also made another good stop later on but I can’t remember if that was offside or not. I don’t think the flag went up but maybe it would have if they’d scored. We were at least 2-0 up at that point anyway but the clean sheet is important after some recent wobbles and besides, I didn’t want Arsenal getting anything at all from this. The pricks.
To think I was actually apprehensive about this before kick off. Not because I bought into any of the shite we’ve been hearing about ‘new look Arsenal’ and how their new young team are suddenly not pushovers any more and they have more steel about them. I’ll concede they aren’t the utter clowns how they were when they had Mustafi and David Luiz back there, but they’re still Arsenal.
I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried about us. We hadn’t played well in the last couple of league games so I wasn’t sure what to expect. My head was telling me it would be normal service resumed and we’d swat them aside because… well, they’re Arsenal, but I did have this nagging worry that we might completely shit down our own leg and then I’d have to call for everybody’s head because losing to this Arsenal side is just not something I’d be able to process rationally.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think we’d win, it was that I kept thinking “imagine if we don’t. Imagine if we somehow let these fucking bums get something”. Thankfully that didn’t happen and I’m a happy camper today. Obviously this doesn’t compare to winning 5-0 at Old Trafford but there’s a different kind of enjoyment about it. I was buzzing after spanking United. This isn’t that. It’s just a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. As I keep saying, this is what is supposed to happen when we play them so it feels good that the lads did the job they should be doing.
It was important to get back to winning ways and we’ve done that. The squad is stretched at the moment and we had nine players missing for this one. The bench was seriously inexperienced but we’ve still got enough players to put out a really strong eleven, with two or three good options on the bench too.
Ox is now making the kind of contribution we expect from a starting player. I’m not saying he’s been brilliant or anything, but the performances he’s been putting in of late are definitely ones you can live with. I actually thought he was really good in this one despite three or four slack moments when his passing went astray. His pressing was outstanding and he brought great energy, especially in the second half when we just robbed Arsenal’s lunch money. Ox was the one picking them up and hanging them upside down by their ankles to see what fell out of their pockets.
Kostas was really good again, as was Thiago. He had one sloppy moment when he was dispossessed in the first half and Arsenal countered on us, but other than that I don’t think he lost possession once. The front three were all dangerous. Jota was the quietest but he scored again. Like I say, it feels as though he scores every time he plays. Sadio was wildly erratic but caused absolute fucking mayhem and ran Arsenal ragged. Mo just looked like the most skilful man on the pitch, which he usually is these days regardless of who we’re playing. Some of his touches and control when running at full speed just defy belief.
Star man is Fabinho though. When he plays like that nobody can beat us. I just wish we could play Arsenal every week, because the only way we would ever drop points is if we were complete dogshit. I still can’t believe Arteta thinks he can play like that against us and not get absolutely twatted. Guardiola learned that lesson very quickly and he’s got vastly superior players in his side. Hopefully Arteta never learns because I quite enjoy putting four or five past them every time they come to Anfield.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas; Fabinho, Oxlade-Chamberlain (Henderson), Thiago (Morton); Salah, Jota (Minamino), Mané:
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